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IBM is looking to sign up HR managers to a beefed up version of its enterprise social networking suite Connections which feature new content management and analytics capabilities.

The upgrades on IBM Connections 4.5 include analytic features that enable administrators to monitor such things as collaboration trends among employees as well as customer engagement in social services like Facebook and Twitter.

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IBM’s latest version of Connections was unveiled today at the Connect 2013 Conference in Orlando brings Connections closers to stronger rivals such as Microsoft’s SharePoint. Connections 4.5 will be available in March this year.

The new content management functions includes features that enable human resources and marketing departments push out to employees collaboration tools for micro blogging, instant messaging, document sharing, video conferencing and content rating. The new tools also manage activity streams, content rating, discussion forums and wikis.

Enterprise social networks or ESN have been a buzz word lately in many large corporations seeking to foster improved communication and collaboration among their employees the way much more nimble small and medium sized businesses have been using social media and cloud-based collaboration tools for several years now.

Some recent surveys, however, suggests that ESN are failing to meet expectations in the large enterprise space.

These surveys show that ESN implementations are weighed down by sharp drop in user interest after an initial surge of fervor. Another common hindrance mentioned is lack of executive buy in.

Essentially, researchers are finding that in many companies there is a dearth of content creators and insufficient interest on the part of intended content consumers.